


Sleeping Habits

by BlueColoredDreams



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Napping, Skinship, alternating povs, sleeping habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-14
Updated: 2015-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-07 13:29:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3174956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueColoredDreams/pseuds/BlueColoredDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They have their habits that make their relationship the way it is, and how they sleep just happens to be one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleeping Habits

**Author's Note:**

> What is this? I don't know. ( ・◇・)？Shameless fluffy skinship-y-ness based off of [this](http://spockishot.tumblr.com/post/95918603958/thinking-about-ur-otps-napping-is-so-important) and expanded past napping to 'Yamaguchi is a serial sleep-cuddler'. Written as a series of vignettes.

**i.**

Their first sleepover is impromptu and sudden. Tadashi doesn’t have any clothes with him but the ones on his back, and his only things are what’s in his backpack, and they’re all soaked through and sodden from the sprint from the gym to Tsukki’s house. He has no time to prepare himself at all.

“Tadashi-kun, go take those wet clothes off—Kei, sweetheart, go get him some of your older clothes when you change,” Tsukki’s mother instructs as she rubs towels over both boys. Outside, the wind picks up and howls around the Tsukishima house; Tadashi winces slightly as thunder starts to roll.

Akiteru sticks his head from around the corner, “The weatherman says it won’t pass over until at least tomorrow,” he says, shaking his head.

Tadashi bites down on his lip, feeling very shy and very small standing in the entryway, dripping, as his friend’s mother fusses over him. He’s been to Tsukki’s house a few times before, but always to do homework after school. He’s stayed once for dinner, and watched TV for a bit with Tsukki until his parents came to pick him up, since he wasn’t allowed to walk home in the dark. They’ve never talked about spending the night with each other before; in fact, Tadashi’s never once been to a sleepover.

Even before he started getting bullied, when he had friends… well, he supposes that they were never his friends, exactly, but he’d _thought_ they were— he’d never been invited to one. But now Tsukki’s mother is directing him to the guest bathroom with a stack of towels and promises to lay out the old clothes that she’d sent Tsukki off to get, gather his wet ones, and to call his parents.

“My parents?” Tadashi says, blinking. “Um. To come get me?”

“Of course not! Just to let them know you’re here safe, and we’ll keep you until this passes. I’m sure they’re worried sick about you, especially since all the weather forecasts didn’t have this typhoon passing through until tomorrow,” Tsukishima-san said warmly. “If you want to talk to them yourself, I can wait until you finish cleaning up.”

Tadashi shakes his head, “No, thank you,” he says politely. “Sorry for imposing.”

“Oh it’s no trouble at all,” she says with a warm smile. “You’re always welcome here; it’s nice to finally have you spend the night. Kei’s been asking after it for a few weeks now—it’s just a shame it happened with you unprepared.”

“ _Mom_ , let him dry off,” Tsukki says, clearing his throat loudly. Tadashi peers around Tsukki’s mother, blinking at his friend.

Tsukki had changed out of his wet school clothes and had changed into a tracksuit. “Clothes,” he said, cheeks flushed pink as he very determinedly avoided Tadashi’s eye. His mother smiled at them both and left, ruffling Tsukki’s hair fondly as she passed.

Tadashi smiles shyly and holds hands out, receiving a pair of flannel pajama pants and a sweatshirt with a triceratops on it. “Did you really ask them if I could stay over before?” he asks hesitantly. He’s starting to get chilled standing around in his wet clothes, but it seems more important to ask this now.

Kei snorts and looks away, crossing his arms across his chest. “Only so you can watch Jaws. I can’t believe you’ve never seen it,” he says haughtily. “Now go shower so you’ll stop dripping all over the place.”

He laughs, “Sorry, Tsukki.” Tsukki rolls his eyes and strides out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Tadashi showers and changes, nearly swimming in even Tsukki’s older clothes. He rolls the hems of the pants until he doesn’t look like he’s a toddler wearing his father’s clothes and pushes the sleeves of the sweatshirt up his arms. Luckily the neckline of the sweatshirt doesn’t sag too badly around his neck; it only gapes at the back, which he supposes is better than sliding down his shoulders. He’s finally warm and dry, and he’s surprisingly comfortable despite the fact that his clothes are all borrowed and oversized. He rolls his wet clothes up and leaves them were he was instructed to, padding out into the hall to find Tsukki.

The blond is in his room, thankfully—Tadashi doesn’t quite feel comfortable enough yet, despite being warm, dry, and happy in Tsukki’s old clothes, to wander his friend’s house to look for him. Tsukki’s sitting on his bed with a book, extra blankets and pillows piled beside him. Tadashi shifts from foot to foot, unsure of whether he needed to announce his presence or if he could just settle wherever. Normally Tsukki directs him, so he just waits.

“Stop that,” Tsukki says without looking up from his book. Tadashi stops. Tsukki keeps reading until he finishes what Tadashi assumes is the chapter. He closes the book and unfolds himself from his bed. “Mom said that when you were done, dinner was ready. She thinks the power might go off, so instead of waiting, she wants everyone to just go to bed early.”

Tadashi swallows and nods, fidgeting with the hem of his borrowed sweatshirt. He doesn’t think it’s a great time to admit that he _hates_ storms and he hates it when the power goes out during one; he suddenly wishes he was home where he can hide away from the roar of the wind and thunder without being embarrassed.

Tsukki looks at him carefully, but doesn’t say anything. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what his friend is thinking, but Tadashi’s fairly certain that Tsukki’s look is measured curiosity. He wonders what Tsukki’s curious about—he amuses himself during the walk downstairs with thinking up different thoughts for his friend.

Dinner is nice, and it takes Tadashi’s mind off of his anxiousness over the storm and his first sleepover. He’s at least a little bit familiar with the dinnertime routines at the Tsukishima house, and can relax enough to laugh helplessly as Akiteru relays an embarrassing story about accidentally breaking Tsukki’s first pair of glasses when teaching the boy how to do receives. He’s probably going to pay dearly for every second he spends laughing as Tsukki turns redder and redder as his mother pitches in her parts of the story. (He’s fairly certain that Tsukki just kicked Akiteru under the table too, so he draws his legs up into the chair just in case.)

It’s worth Tsukki’s payback, which is the story about how Tadashi got hopelessly tangled in the volleyball net at practice last week. It’s still embarrassing—but it’s not the slow creeping embarrassment he gets when someone is particularly mean to him; it’s the soft kind where he ends up giggling at his own mistakes. He shrugs when Tsukki rolls his eyes as he describes finding Tadashi in the back room, bound up in the net like a fish. “It wasn’t _that_ bad, Tsukki,” he replies primly, like he’s scolding the blond for exaggerating, which earns a round of laughter from Tsukki’s family.

They finish dinner in no time, and even though Tadashi offers to help clean up, Tsukki’s mother waves him and her youngest son off, so he and Tsukki go back up to the blond’s room. It’s not long before there’s a particularly loud crack of thunder, maybe one and a half worksheet’s worth of time, and in the split second between Tadashi’s flinch and the thunder, the power goes out with a pop. He whimpers despite himself.

He can hear Tsukki sighing in frustration and before he can apologize, Tsukki’s reaching around him in the dark, nearly bumping against him. Tadashi doesn’t move an inch. There’s some more rustling, then Tsukki leans back and turns on a small emergency lantern. “You’re scared of storms or the dark—which is it?” he asks.

Tadashi swallows and clenches his fists against his legs. “Storms,” he admits quietly, feeling his ears burn with shame as he waits for the inevitable verbal slap.

Tsukki just clicks his tongue and  stands from the small folding desk they were doing homework at. He walks over to his bed, and starts rearranging the pillows there. He slides himself under the covers and holds them up. “Well, come on,” he says, sounding exasperated. “We’ll just sleep through it.”

“I don’t think I can,” Tadashi says uncertainly, chewing on his lip. He puts his pencil down and slowly slides the cover back onto his calculator, trying to control his building panic at being in a somewhat-new place, in near-dark conditions, during a typhoon. He tries to take his time, but eventually he has to look back up at his friend. He can’t see Tsukki’s eyes very well—the lantern’s light is making a glare against the other boy’s glasses, but he swears he can _hear_ his friend’s eyes rolling. “I… I might be too scared to.”

“Sure you can,” Tsukki says shortly. “Come on.”

Tadashi slowly gets to his feet and pads over to the bed. He shifts awkwardly from foot to foot, rubbing his palms nervously against his borrowed pajama pants. There’s a sudden flash of near blinding light that’s occupied with a loud, hair-raising pop, and his subsequent flinch sends him flying under the covers. He huddles next to his friend for the long roll of following thunder, resisting the urge to shove his head under the piles of pillows that Tsukki’s arranged around them.

It’s not until the thunder settles that Tadashi realizes he’s probably too close to the blond. He scoots back a little in the sheets, biting on the inside of his cheek. “Um… shouldn’t we use separate blankets?”  

Tsukki scoffs and reaches for his book. “Too much work. We’re both boys,” he says dismissively. “Just don’t steal them.” He starts to read again, pushing his glasses idly up onto his forehead as he holds the book close in the dim light.

Tadashi can hear the storm raging outside, thunder loud and insistent against the wind and rain. He can hear Akiteru and his mother talking out in the hallway about flashlight batteries. Akiteru pokes his head into Tsukki’s room.

“You two okay?”

“We’re fine, niisan,” Tsukki sighs, turning the page of his book like he was bored.

“If you two get scared, you can come into my room—and Kei, you’re going to murder what’s left of your eyesight reading like that.” There’s something in Akiteru’s voice that’s warm and soft and very reminiscent of how Tadashi’s mother sounded during the worst parts of the storms when he was much younger and was still allowed to wiggle into bed with this parents. Huh. Well that was interesting information.

Tadashi blinks and watches as Kei turns his head and sticks his tongue out at Akiteru, who snickers and closes the door.

“…are you scared of storms too, Tsukki?” Tadashi asks after a minute.

“Not anymore,” Tsukki says loftily, with the air of someone who was probably still afraid of something, but was being brave. “But it’s fine if you are.”

It’s one of those moments where Tadashi’s reminded just how cool his friend really is, even though he’s a major dork most of the time.

Tadashi smiles to himself and rolls onto his side so he can watch Tsukki read in the dim lantern light. It’s comfortable under the covers, the sound of Tsukki breathing and soft flick of pages being turned counteract the loud silence the absence of the usual white noise of everyday electrical life that Tadashi hates, and makes the bursts of window-rattling wind and bone-shaking thunder more bearable. He finds himself flinching towards Tsukki during the louder cracks of lightening, the ones that make his ears pop and his teeth hurt from clenching in anticipation of thunder, until his forehead is resting lightly against his friend’s shoulder.

Tsukki shifts slightly, not to shrug Tadashi off, but to make sure he doesn’t elbow the shorter boy when he goes to turn a page. He doesn’t say anything either, when Tadashi curls his fingers into his shirt; instead, Tadashi feels Tsukki slowly relaxing from where he was tense from holding back his own fear for Tadashi.

Tadashi falls asleep like that, curled loosely against Tsukki’s side as the boy reads. He dreams of sunshine and flowers and the smell of the detergent the Tsukishimas use; it’s a warm and happy dream, where he soaks up the sunshine into his bones until he’s radiating with heat himself. When he wakes up, Tsukki’s awake and reading again, hair mussed and glasses gone. The sounds of electricity have returned and the rain is softer against the blond’s windows, and Tadashi’s arms are wrapped firmly around Tsukki’s waist and his face is pressed up into the taller boy’s chest.

Tsukki looks down at him and smirks. “Sloth boy,” he sneers.

**ii.**

He’s never seen this before. In the year they’ve been friends, he doesn’t think he’s ever _seen_ Tsukki sleep once. The first sleepover set the bar for all the others: Tadashi’s always the first to fall asleep and Tsukki always wakes up first, sneering as he wakes his friend up, greeting him with a: “You’re such a little kid” or some other almost-snide comment about his sleeping habits, generally animal themed. It’s true, though; at eleven years old, Tadashi still can’t stay up much later than ten without getting bleary-eyed and yawning, and sleeps like a log until someone wakes him up. He also has an awful cuddling habit; he’s surprised that Tsukki’s never kicked him out of bed yet. He falls asleep during movies. He takes naps with his math homework. If he’s sleepy, he sleeps.

He’s never thought that Tsukki would even _take_ naps. Much less naps at school—he just doesn’t seem like the type, really, to take naps at all.  It would be cute, Tadashi thinks, if he didn’t realize that normally, Tsukki _wouldn’t_. It just sort of aches instead.

He kneels down and puts the container of juice he’d bought for Tsukki into the blond’s bag, sitting carefully in the vacant desk in front of Tsukki’s, trying hard not to kick his friend’s desk as he straddled the chair.

He idly pushes the straw of his own drink through the foil on the top, surveying his friend in concern. He’s been worried about Tsukki lately, even more than what’s become the norm since going to that volleyball game last term.

They’re in sixth grade now and in the same class; the teachers have started pushing harder materials at them in preparation for junior high entrance exams, and Akiteru’s gone off to college. He knows Tsukki hasn’t been sleeping well from the way the skin under his eyes are smudged dark and his normally composed, clipped sarcasm has become feral and cruel. Just the other day, he’d made the setter in their afterschool club cry, and it was the first time Tadashi had ever sat side-by-side with Tsukki on the bench. He didn’t enjoy it.

He just doesn’t really know what to do about it, other than just keep doing what he’s been doing, which is to just let Tsukki do his own thing. Tell him the good things about himself. Cheer for him during practice and fill their awkward silences with chatter. He wonders if any of it is actually _helping_.

He drinks his juice pensively. He finishes it and sets it aside so he can gently push Tsukki’s iPod away from where the blond’s elbow is threatening to push it over the edge of his desk. He leans forward in his chair and rests his chin on the back of it, watching the way that Tsukki’s shoulders slowly rise and fall as he sleeps, face relaxed and open for the first time in months. With his head nestled in his arms, cheek smushed up against his forearm, he looks young, Tadashi decides. Especially since like this, it’s not easy to tell that Tsukki is ridiculously tall already and has the air of an adult who is decidedly above children.

There’s no sneer pasted onto his lips and his eyes aren’t cold and hard—or worse, that curious blank sheen that Tsukki sometimes gets when he’s on the volleyball court now—and Tadashi feels very protective, very suddenly. Tsukki deserves to be able to sleep, he’s decided. And he’s going to make sure that happens.

He starts shushing his classmates who wander too close, and violently waves away the girl on assistant duty who comes halfway through the lunch hour to collect their science worksheets. He kicks one of the boys from their afterschool volleyball club who whips his phone out to take a picture of Tsukki instead of coming to talk about practice like he normally does.

He amuses himself by thinking of it like a game, where he’s a knight sworn to protect… Well, the sleeping princess, he supposes, giggling to himself. Sleeping beauty Tsukki. He tries hard not to laugh any harder, lest he wake up his friend. He stops only when there’s ten minutes left of their lunch period and decides it’s time to wake Tsukki up so he can have time to eat if he wants to.

He reaches forward and tentatively touches Tsukki’s shoulder, not really bothering to say anything because he’s pretty certain that the blond’s headphones would smother out the sound of his voice.

The blond rolls his shoulder slightly, trying to shrug off Tadashi’s touch, and he pushes his face a bit more into his arm, glasses slipping off his nose. Tadashi suppresses a giggle and the desire to pull Tsukki’s glasses off his face; he lays his hand on his friend’s shoulder and gives it a gentle shake.

Tsukki scowls and grumbles, eyes fluttering open as he wakes. The innocence his nap brought to his face washes away as he rouses, as grumpy as he always is. “What?” he mutters as he blinks and lifts his head. He reaches up and rights his glasses.

Tadashi points wordlessly at the clock, trying not to snigger at the large red mark on Tsukki’s cheek where it had been pushed up against the desk.

“Oh,” Tsukki says tonelessly, slipping his headphones down around his neck. He pauses, “Have you been watching me the entire time? What a weird hobby.”

Tadashi shrugs and kicks his feet against his chair. “Just so other people wouldn’t wake you up. Oh, I got you juice; I put it in your bag,” he replies, smiling softly at his friend.

Tsukki leans over and fishes the strawberry juicebox out of his bag along with his bento; Tadashi can’t see his face, not really, but he swears he can hear Tsukki mutter a quiet ‘thanks’. He beams.

**iii.**

Kei is _almost_ disgusted at how easily Yamaguchi falls asleep on him, but he’s known for a long time now that’s just how it is. But that doesn’t keep him from marveling at it like it’s a side-show curiosity: The bus is loud, stuffy, warm, and Yamaguchi’s leaning on him despite the armrest between their seats, his face pressed against his arm. His breath against his bicep makes his entire arm feel hot underneath the jersey material of his warm-up jacket.

He doesn’t even know _why_ Yamaguchi is asleep; he didn’t even play. He’d spent their entire (crappy) game on the sidelines with the few first and second years that occasionally got playing time on their horrible junior-high team. He entertains the thought that Yamaguchi _actually_ exhausted himself by _cheering_ which… isn’t as pathetic as he thought it would be when it first popped into his mind.

It’s… actually kind of endearing. He makes a face and looks away from his sleeping friend. He rests his chin against his hand, watching the scenery roll by out the window. Yamaguchi slumps a little more against him, face sliding down Kei’s arm to rest firmly in the crook of his elbow. If the boy slides around anymore, he’ll probably end up faceplanting into his lap, Kei thinks, but doesn’t move to correct this precarious situation. It’s fine to let Yamaguchi sleep like that if he was tired.

He keeps telling himself that even when Yamaguchi starts to drool on him.

**iv.**

“I’m taking a picture.”  
“Noya, no.”  
“I’m taking it! You’ll thank me later, Suga!”  
“ _Noya_ , **no**.”  

_click_

It’s some ungodly hour in the morning, and Kei’s patience has run out before he’s even woken up. It’s only sensible for that to happen, he thinks, when you’ve slept on a crappy school futon on an old wooden floor after practicing until your muscles can’t move anymore and you’re woken up by upperclassmen thinking your sleep is a fucking game.

He opens his eyes. Noya is grinning like an idiot and Sugawara looks like an exasperated mother. They’re both still in their pajamas and Kei wants to murder them both. He especially wants to get his hand on Noya’s phone because he distinctly heard the noise of the shutter going on its camera app. Somewhere in the background he can hear Hinata shouting at Kageyama about toothpaste. It’s too fucking early for this.

He wonders if just deleing the picture will be enough to satisfy him. It won’t be. He’ll slam it into the concrete outside like he’s spiking a ball. That’d be fun.

“You are _dead_ ,” he hisses, narrowing his eyes as he glares at Noya and Sugawara. He thought Sugawara was above this, he did. The sheepish smile he gets back from the vice-captain is just as infuriating as Noya’s boisterous laughter, and Kei is very tempted to reach behind his head and throw his pillow at the libero to shut him up.

“Like you can even move to try,” Noya laughs, waving his phone in the air before bouncing off, laughing like a maniac the entire way. Somewhere Sawamura starts shouting for quiet. Which is counterintuitive, because their captain’s voice echoes and would kill them all to sleep for another damn hour?

“I’ll get him to delete that,” Sugawara says with a tone that conveys more amusement than tempered exasperation. Kei wonders if there’s any penalty if he just rolls over and goes back to sleep to ignore everyone. “Don’t worry.”

He continues to glare up at Sugawara, who still has that stupid saccharine smile on his face like it’s not dark-thirty in the morning and he’s getting a death glare from an underclassman. “Breakfast is in an hour,” he says sweetly. “So you might want to wake Yamaguchi-kun up.”

And why is it automatically _his_ job to wake up Yamaguchi? He thinks he’ll just roll over and then they can both sleep some more, so _there_ Sugawara. He'll do a penalty if it means sticking it to that ridiculous angelic smile the vice-captain is giving him. 

Suga points down somewhere to the vicinity of Kei’s chest. “It looks like you might be uncomfortable? Maybe?”

Kei looks down at the unruly mop of brown hair that’s peeking up between the top of his blankets and the second layer of futon that’s somehow ended up on him. One of his hands is wound into it, palm curved around the base of Yamaguchi’s skull, keeping the brunet still against his chest in his sleep.

…Well, that explains a lot. “Whatever,” he grumbles.

He takes stock of the situation as Sugawara walks away, and realizes that spiking Noya’s phone into the concrete won’t be enough. He’ll have to spike the phone, step on it, and set it on fire, then… well. He wonders if a volleyball to the head can trigger amnesia. But there’s no way—the entire team has probably seen this by this point, and there's no way he can get away with slamming a ball into _everyone's_ head. He just sighs in resignation.

Half of his body is numb from where all sixty-three kilograms of Yamaguchi is laying on him; the other boy presumably rolled out of his futon during the night. He’d gotten so used to Yamaguchi’s octopus act that he’d not thought twice about spreading their futons out close in their corner of the dormitory. Both sets of blankets are rucked up around them, and Kei isn’t sure why this didn’t wake him up because now his feet are uncomfortably cold and his middle is very very warm from the heat of two comforters and Yamaguchi.

The boy’s using him as a _pillow_ for christ’s sake. Never mind that Yamaguchi had his own perfectly fine pillow and perfectly fine futon—that’s just a moot point now, because the damage is done, and even if some of the members didn’t see _in person_ that their legs are tangled together and Yamaguchi’s got one arm slung over Kei’s shoulder, fingers curled into the fabric of his friend’s shirt, not to mention the whole his-hand-in-Yamaguchi’s-hair business, Noya’s no doubt shown _everyone_ that Yamaguchi’s using Kei as his own personal oversized teddy bear, Sugawara’s efforts be damned, and…

Kei really can’t bring himself to mind.

He sighs irritably, wondering if he should have put his foot down about this ages ago. They’re both too tall and too old to be sharing beds like they did when they were in elementary school, especially in group settings. The rest of the team is composed of idiots; it wouldn’t surprise Kei if they jumped to conclusions about the nature of their relationship because of this because those ideas are low-hanging fruit, and they’re easy to reach.

He doesn’t really care if _he_ gets teased for letting Yamaguchi snuggle up to him at night, because no matter what Sugawara might suggest, it’s not overly uncomfortable—the extra blankets and Yamaguchi’s warmth against him makes up for the fact that his feet are fucking freezing, and the way the boy occasionally will nuzzle into him like a cat is more than enough to account for the fact that his friend snores and drools and he can’t actually feel the hand that’s stuck firmly underneath Yamaguchi’s bony hip. He can deal with a few dings against his dignity—it won’t take much for him to get Noya and the others to shut up about it, he just…

He really doesn’t want them teasing Yamaguchi about it. That’s **_his_** territory—he didn’t even put up with Akiteru teasing them about it when they were younger. And… he really doesn’t want it to stop, as irritating as it is that they got caught like this. He’s gotten scarily used to the skinship aspect of their friendship, where Yamaguchi falls asleep on him and touches the inside of his wrists and elbows where his skin is soft and ticklish  to get his attention and leans against him during bus rides and _always_ gets in his space.

He doesn’t think they’ll be mean about it—they’re all too stupid to actually _be_ cruel. But he doesn’t want Yamaguchi self conscious of it, and… he’s thinking too much about this stupid sleeping arrangement they have going on.

He prods Yamaguchi in the side and starts worming his way out from under the brunet. Yamaguchi  clings like nobody’s business; it’s _ridiculous_. “Get up,” he says, jabbing his finger into the soft spot on the other boy’s side where he knows Yamaguchi is the most ticklish.

Yamaguchi flinches and his eyes open wide as he gives the sleepy, gurgling equivalent of a squeak. He blinks dolefully at Kei as he rolls off of the blond so he can sit on his heels. He yawns out a very confused, “Tsukki?”.

“It’s time for breakfast,” Kei says shortly, scowling and shaking out his hand where it’s red and feeling like it’s crawling with ants. “You’re a remora, you know that, right?”

Yamaguchi frowns sleepily, tipping his head to the side, “But aren’t remoras good for sharks?”

Kei grabs his glasses and pushes them onto his face, standing. “Figure it out yourself.”

**v.**

He puts his foot down when he realizes that he’s wrapped around Tadashi’s fingers like wound up thread.

Not that he _dislikes_ being used as a life-sized pillow. Or foregoing their walk home so Tadashi can go practice his serve. Or doing stuff like tutoring the resident idiots before and after practice.

And that’s _exactly_ why he puts his foot down. Because he likes it. Because he likes Tadashi, and likes waking up to find the slighter boy sprawled across his chest. He likes the way Tadashi leans heavy against him on bus rides or movies as he dozes off. He likes how Tadashi manages to curl all one-eighty centimeters of himself into something small against his side. Hell, he must even like the way he gets drooled all over and woken up by the other boy slinging a leg over his thighs or snoring against his ear, because he’s never put an end to it before.

He likes proving to Tadashi that he’s actually a somewhat decent person sometimes. He likes surprising Tadashi with his occasional nice gestures like getting the brunet his water bottle during practice, or handing him a spare towel. He likes that Tadashi asks him for things when no one else bothers.

Which is _exactly_ why it _has_ to stop before he loses anymore brain cells to this stupid crush of his.  He can’t let it make him stupid. He can’t let it make him weak.

Because he likes their friendship; he likes it more than he likes the idea of being in love with Tadashi. It’s comfortable and nostalgic and it’s _easy_. He can’t fuck that up.

He’s never been certain of just why Tadashi’s stuck around as long as he has, and he doesn’t want to do anything that could mess up that status quo. One wrong move, one misstep—it could throw the whole thing out of whack.

Tadashi could realize that he could do so much better than Kei. He wouldn’t even have to _try_ to end up with someone better than Kei. Whereas the effort Kei would have to put forward… well, he’s not even sure where he could start, if he was so inclined to do it (which he’s not; there’s too much room for error, too much of a chance to lose what they have now).

So he puts an end to it.

**vi.**

Sometime after that first training camp, Tsukki stops letting Tadashi sleep with him when they spend the night with each other. Tadashi doesn’t think much about it when it happens, because now that they’re in high school and on a volleyball team that could actually have a chance, they don’t spend the night together as often. There’s just not time for it, between practice, extra practice, and homework.

It makes sense to Tadashi. After all, they’re both relatively tall boys, and he supposes it’s not _exactly_ proper for them to be sleeping together in the same bed… especially since somewhere along the way, Tadashi’s picked up on the fact that he’s had helpless crush on his friend for… Well, _years_ probably.

He blushes now at the memories of all the times he’s woken up clinging to Tsukki or has slumped against him on the bus or train or sofa, crippled with a strange sense of post- traumatic embarrassment. He can’t believe himself. He _really_ can’t. He’s so clueless that it’s ridiculous.

It was always so innocent before; it was just something they did, but oh god. If it were to happen again, he didn’t think it would be, so he tells himself it’s for the best. It’s for the best.

It really is.

But it’s lonely, having to place his futon farther away from Tsukki’s than he normally would when they go to Nekoma for another training camp. It’s lonely when he has to sleep on the floor when he spends the night before the tournament.

It’s lonely and it hurts when he forces himself to go straight home after his extra practice following their loss to Seijou. He wants more than anything to tuck himself against Tsukki’s side and sleep and wake up warm and snug in the other boy’s bed. He wants to feel safe and accepted and have Tsukki’s quiet presence soothe away the parts of his heart that hurt, like Tsukki’s company eased away his fear of storms all those years ago. He wants to hear Tsukki teasing him about his terrible sleeping habits.

He never once thought of himself as someone who desperately needed physical affection before, but it’s become increasingly apparent that he _does_ , and as the weeks roll by with just brushing contact with Tsukki, it’s obvious he just really needs it from the blond. His batteries are running low and no amount of shoulder-claps and friendly punches from his teammates can replace how bright and new he feels after spending a night with Tsukki, their hands brushing as they settle into sleep and their bodies snug against each others’ as they wake.

He’s lonely and he hurts and he loves his best friend.

He doesn’t have enough fingers (or toes) to count all the ways that he’s just pathetic.

**vii.**

Frankly, they’re both idiots—but they don’t realize it until some months later. Not until their patience with the other wears so thin it almost breaks, and Tadashi yells at Kei for the first time in their entire friendship.

He’d been afraid they’d be awkward with each other after that, because Tadashi had never once even gotten near what had happened with Akiteru. He’d started to wonder, that by indulging Kei’s insistence on ignoring the issue, if he’d been a pretty bad friend—it had only hurt Kei to let it fester. But, waiting, it seems, was the right thing; they had to get to this point in their lives to be ready to handle it.

He’s surprised to find Kei waiting up for him in the dorm room; he’d been visiting the Nekoma room with Hinata and Kageyama until Daichi had come to fetch them. He’s even more surprised to find that Kei’s dragged his futon closer to his.

Tadashi settles down onto his own futon, “You know if you put it that close, I’ll end up in yours, right?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he starts to turn down his sheets.

“That’s the point, moron.”

“Don’t be mean, Tsukki!” he whines, feeling himself turn pink. He doesn’t really want to get his hopes up about any hidden meanings, but he does think that, at least, this means that they’re still close enough that Kei doesn’t mind if he rolls into his futon during the night.

In the end, he doesn’t, but it’s one of the instances that it’s the thought behind the offer that really counts. And anyway, he makes up for it on the ride back to Miyagi, where he wakes up with his face pressed against Kei’s thigh after a particularly sharp turn.

He’s never once seen the blond flush that hard. It’s amusing, and it makes Tadashi start to wonder that just maybe, there's a real chance that they could be much more than just close friends. 

**viii.**

It’s easy enough for them to fall back into their old habits. Tadashi naps against Kei during breaks in practice and Kei glares at anyone who dares snicker at them (it’s mostly the usual suspects, Hinata, Noya, and Tanaka, who are more encouraged by Kei’s glaring than the actual sight of them sitting at the edge of the court before warm up really starts, Tadashi’s head lulled over onto the blond’s shoulder). They know better than to mess with Kei and Tadashi’s dynamic, and he knows they don’t really mean any harm outside of being obnoxious as hell.

It reminds him of the first time Tadashi ever shook him awake. Not that he’s sentimental, no. But the memory is strong: Tadashi leaning forward, face soft and still round with the last few layers of baby-fat that he swears he still has, smiling softly at him as he explained that he’d let Kei sleep. The fluttering appreciation that swelled up in him was the first warmth he’d felt in months; it was like Tadashi had stepped into the role of protector and caretaker that Akiteru had vacated.

He’s not sentimental. Not one bit. But he has been thinking a lot, about their relationship and what he wants to do with it.

So when they have their first sleepover in months, he lets Tadashi crawl under the covers with him. Tadashi doesn’t bother with any excuses about the guest futon they’re both ignoring and Kei doesn’t say anything when Tadashi sidles them up, back to back.

He falls asleep to the feeling of his friend breathing against him, slow and deep in the dark, and wakes with the familiar weight of Tadashi’s arms and legs slung over him.

He turns his head slightly reaching up to thread his fingers into the brunet’s flyaway hair that’s ticking his face and lips. Tadashi opens his eyes and blinks at him, slow and without the haze of sleep and Kei realizes that for the first time, Tadashi’s awake before him.

“So,” Tadashi murmurs. “What am I? A leech?”

“Not a leech,” Kei replies sleepily. He can’t muster up his normal quick wit; he’s not awake enough, he’s too warm too, and he’s never once thought of Tadashi as a parasite to him, even though others can’t see that their relationship is mutually symbiotic. “Those are bad.”

“Leeches can be used in medicine, Tsukki,” Tadashi said lightly.   

Kei shakes his head and mumbles, “Told you before, remoras.”

“Remoras are good for sharks,” Tadashi says again, still in the same sort of bewildered amusement he’d said it during that first training camp.

Kei yawns and nods. He slides his fingers idly though Tadashi’s hair, rubbing the strands between his fingers. Tadashi swallows and his fingers clench Kei’s shirt. “...you’re good for me,” Kei finally murmurs, feeling himself flush.  

Tadashi is quiet for a long moment before he shifts slightly so he’s less laying on Kei and more hovering over him. He bites his lip, thoughtful; “Hey, Tsukki,” he whispers, face red, “Is… is it okay if I…?”

Kei blinks up at Tadashi, smirk spreading slow across his lips. The other boy could be asking any number of things, really, but Tadashi isn’t the only one who’d learned how to interpret what was meant in silences. But he knows that Tadashi's reading into the statement exactly what Kei meant for him to: that he doesn't mind, that he likes it when he wakes up with Tadashi sprawled out against him, that he _likes_ the other boy. He cups his palm against the back of Tadashi’s head and urges him forward, leaning up onto his elbows so he could brush a soft, closed-mouth kiss against the brunet’s lips.

He falls back into the pillows and tugged Tadashi down against him. “Yeah. Now go back to sleep, koala boy,” he mutters, “It’s still early.”

Tadashi grins and laughs softly, nestling into Kei’s embrace. “Okay, Tsukki.”

Eventually, Kei’s going to run out of animal allusions, but that’s okay; that just means they’ll have managed to stay together long enough, woken up together so many times, that he won’t need them anymore.


End file.
